And then it happens. The impossible inevitability. Annie (the Bride) is escorted out by her mother and the music changes. Tony is beside himself as The Rest of His Life approaches him looking radiant in her simple, white dress. No room for emotion as I begin the ceremony and what feels like 2 or 3 minutes I am later told is actually 27… A worm-hole in the universe. I tell them they are husband and wife — something I never dreamed I would do for anyone – they kiss, and it’s all official. Everyone exits the garden and I am left standing there like I was just beamed back down to Earth from God knows where.

Pictures are taken and champagne is brought out on silver trays by friendly middle-aged women and the Shit Show begins. The tents are already jammed by the time I meet Burns back at the corner bar (as planned) for some much-needed Jack & Cokes (his choice). It’s like the high-school reunion I didn’t go to a few months previous, with over a dozen faces from my youth all grown up and looking more or less the same except now married and / or with kids. It feels like everyone but me is following some sort of Adult Playbook, following a set pattern of rules and deadlines — like some social memo I never got. But even if I got it… would I follow it?

Despite all of the bittersweet nostalgia, I really am doing fine until “Unforgettable” is cued and the Bride & Groom are swooning each other on the dance-floor surrounded by a crowd of couples. Having recently found myself single again for the first time in over two years, I am suddenly the Loneliest Man Alive and something hits me like a freight train — prompting me to walk outside. The Bride & Groom are dancing into their new life together, Nat King Cole’s voice is echoing through the mysterious Connecticut night, and I am standing under a starless sky pondering my destiny. I don’t know what any of this means except that everyone is getting older and some people have found Love & Happiness and others have not and maybe never will. This is what makes a man, I think to myself as I straighten my tie, To suffer. To suffer and look good doing it.

I take a deep breath and absorb my reality. The fresh Atlantic air does wonders for me and when I grab another drink at the bar, Burns’ face is pouring sweat as he mixes Jack, wine and beer. Before long I’m pissing into the bushes as everyone stumbles back into the school bus to go back to the hotel. The drive back through the dark forest is drunk and silly and Jared is still swigging beer like a champ and Burns is staring out at the passing mystery – make no mistake, we are all passengers in this thing called life.

It looks like I drank more than I thought because when I wake up in bed it’s somewhere between 1 and 2 am and I am upset at myself for missing out on the after-party. I get out of my wrinkled suit and back into a plaid button-down and jeans — a return to normalcy. Half of our gang is still in Shadrach’s with arms around each other, which is out of love but also to help each other stand. I decide to see who’s out on the smoking patio and a tipsy bridesmaid follows me out still in her crumpled, white dress. All she says is “I’m following you” and we end up talking for an hour about everything and nothing. Bridesmaids and groomsmen smoke all around us, their exhales dance and fade into thin air like blue phantoms. Am I flirting with the bridesmaid? Is there a spark? Before I can ruminate any further, the FIRE ALARM goes off all over the hotel and rows of guests in pajamas stream out all around us, dazed and bloodshot. No one knows what set it off and we all stand outside in the parking lot drunk and dumbstruck. An ambulance arrives, unrelated to the fire-alarm, to wheel off the groom’s younger brother who drank too much and was unresponsive in his room.

It’s safe to say when the Best Man is shoved into an ambulance, the party has reached its Peak. All rites of passage come to an end and this one is no different. Once the alarm is turned off, everyone files back into their borrowed rooms to pass out and make out and throw up. Drunk Me somehow convinces the bridesmaid to come back to my room, which is actually Jared and Laura’s room that they were kind enough to let me stay in (they got an extra bed). I lead her into room 316 where Jared and Laura are getting ready for bed and announce — way too casually — that the bridesmaid is going to be joining me (!?). Being the nicest couple in the world, they regard me with polite “Marco is drunk again” smiles and we all settle in to our respective beds.

I know what you’re thinking. What kind of depraved Reverend ends up taking an innocent bridesmaid to bed after the ceremony — let alone in a room with other people? Well, nothing happened. We just ended up spooning into the pale morning hours, at which point I woke up and she was gone. Now the hotel is a mad-dash rush for check-out, and the entire wedding party is bumping into each other for hurried, random goodbyes. Tony kicks my bed and tells me, “Hey, you gotta sign the papers before you leave. We’re legally not married yet.”

I mumble something and throw on my jeans and stagger after him down the hall with one eye open and the worst bed-head of all time. Annie is busy packing away and is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as always.

“Where do I sign?”

Tony hands me some documents and I have to ask for the date. I scribble my signature and pat him on the back, “Congratulations. You kids are legal. Now don’t forget your vows.”

I hand them the leather-bound book I had transcribed the ceremony in, “I had a few people jot down their thoughts.” They open it and flip through pages and pages of family and friends wishing them all their heartfelt best, kind of like a yearbook. Annie hugs me and Tony pats me on the back and we say our goodbyes. I walk out of the room and turn around long enough to see them kiss… consigning a new life together that will only ever marginally include myself.

No time for sentimentality. I decide right then and there I’m not ready to go back to the fires, the smog, the eternal / existential traffic-jam of L.A. I haven’t been home in two years and I’m going to abandon my flight, jump in a car with Fiver, his wife and Burns, and shoot across NY state to surprise my parents in Buffalo. Despite what Thomas Wolfe once said, the L.A. writer is going to return home — whatever that ends up meaning.

Make no mistake. Things have changed, alright.